


Home is Where Your Super-Soldier Boyfriend Is

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 22:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12757104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: Clint is sick and he's NOT hiding, but he might try and hole up in an apartment no one but Natasha even knew existed, so maybe it looks like he's hiding. Bucky's good at finding things he's looking for, though, and he's definitely looking for Clint.





	Home is Where Your Super-Soldier Boyfriend Is

 

Clint’s not hiding.

That’s not what this is, but he can feel every second of the two-hour battle in the threads of his muscles, and he can feel every jolt or punch he took in every one of his bones. His brain, once the on-site debrief is finished, spirals into a fuzzy haze, and his only thought is _home_. Only, the home his brain retreats to as his previously low-grade fever slowly ramps up, as his feet clearly have a limited amount of steps left in them for the day, is his old apartment, the one he only retreats to once or twice a month now. It’s also the home maybe he’d neglected to tell Bucky or the team about, like, ever. That’s where he heads for, but he’s not hiding.

Later, he’ll concede that it might have looked that way from Bucky’s point of view.

It doesn’t help that Clint handles being sick the same way he’d handled it when he was on his own as a petulant teenager, by ignoring it completely until it knocks him on his ass. For three days, Bucky has been side-eyeing him and randomly pressing the back of his hand to Clint’s forehead. Clint would swipe it away, and grumble, “I’m fine,” and then Bucky would proceed to frown and go make soup. Clint’s eaten more soup in the last three days than he has in a year. It’s okay, because Bucky makes really good soup, but man, there’d been a lot of soup.

At the same time, Clint had swallowed his coughs, smothered his sneezes, and carefully did not wince when he swallowed, because letting everyone in on how crappy he felt would only lead to one thing: pitying looks that drove Clint up a wall and made him want to go shoot things. He’s an Avenger and a SHIELD agent, and he has shit to do. The fact that he’d brushed Bucky off with excuses about why he couldn’t hang out and proceeded to collapse into bed for four nights straight without even changing clothes doesn’t mean anything. He’ll get over this.

Now he blinks away a wave of dizziness and huddles into the seat on the subway because it’s the fastest way home. Getting a ride back to SHIELD and then actually managing to drive his bike home without crashing into a storefront sounds like way too much effort. The subway is half a block from where the fight with the giant bees had been, and he’ll be home in thirty minutes if all goes well. By ‘goes well’ he means if he doesn’t actually pass out on the subway, which is starting to look like a real possibility. He burrows further into his canvas jacket, pulls his duffel bag close to his chest, closes his eyes against the hazy yellow light of the subway car, and coughs the deep rattling cough that had started this morning.

He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket as his cell phone buzzes in his pocket. He looks at it to see Bucky’s number on the screen and closes his eyes with a wince. He hadn’t said anything to anyone as he’d left, and while him and Bucky are definitely a thing now, they’re a _newish_ thing and Bucky probably won’t think much if Clint doesn’t call back.

He’ll sleep this off and then go back to the tower like nothing has happened, _which it hasn’t._

Now he’s shivering. He looks up at the stop they’re at and tries to count in his head how many more, but apparently simple numbers are out of reach at the moment. He coughs again, and this time he has to swallow after, ‘cause he doesn’t want whatever _that_ is getting smeared on his jacket sleeve. Gross. He shivers and his eyes start to drift shut, so he shakes his head and blinks himself awake. One more stop goes by and now Clint feels like he’s shaking apart in the seat.  He closes his eyes to ward off the nausea that’s shown up in a wave, and this time they stay closed.

 So he’s passed out on the subway. He isn’t the first person to do that.

<><><><><><> 

Bucky’s trying to get away from Hill’s questions because his brain is stuck on how he can’t see Clint anywhere, but fuck if she isn’t persistent and thorough. He glances around as he answers, and she snaps her fingers irritably in his face.

“Barnes. You were the one with the most kills. Tell me what you know about these creatures.”

He can’t find Clint in the crowd. Steve’s talking to Coulson, Natasha and Tony are talking to Sitwell, and Thor and Bruce are talking to Fury. Clint’s nowhere to be seen, and it sets Bucky’s nerves on edge. Something’s been wrong for a few days, and Clint’s definitely been getting sick. Bucky needs to find him.

So he tells Hill what she needs to know, which takes about twenty minutes too long, and when he’s finished Natasha and Steve are waiting for him.

“Where’s Clint?” he asks Natasha. She’s the one who’s the best at keeping tabs on her partner, but she shrugs.

“He ducked out quick. He must have gone back to the tower. You ready to go?”

Bucky nods, but something catches his eye. He walks over to the wall of the building they’re next to and picks up an arrow, its fletching crushed and its shaft bent.

“Not like him to leave stuff laying around after,” Steve says.

Bucky blinks and ignores the sudden churning in his belly. “Let’s go.”

Twenty minutes later and Bucky’s standing in Clint’s tower apartment, arms crossed. The place is empty, and it doesn’t even look like Clint’s been here in a while. Bucky’s new favorite place is Clint’s plush purple couch, and he knows something’s up because the huge grey and purple quilt that is usually thrown carelessly on the couch is now folded and neat. “JARVIS, has Barton been sleeping here this week?”

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes. He has.” There’s a pause, and JARVIS adds, “He has only slept, though. He hasn’t used the kitchen appliances or the television in four days.

Bucky doesn’t bother to correct JARVIS on his rank this time, their old game set aside for the worry growing in Bucky’s chest. “Is he in the tower right now?”

“No, he’s not.”

Bucky moves. He pulls out his phone in the elevator. “Natasha. If Clint were hiding somewhere, where would he go?”

After a quick conversation, he makes another call. “Coulson?” he asks as he leaves the elevator for the garage. “Is Barton with you?”

Phil is Clint’s best friend outside of Natasha. Bucky knows this, and he knows that Phil doesn’t always share what’s going on with Clint when Bucky asks. He’s been told before that Phil thinks Clint and Bucky should get better at communicating if they’re going to give this relationship thing a shot. He’s not necessarily wrong, but Bucky doesn’t have the time or patience for a lecture right now. “Where the hell is he, then?”

Phil doesn’t know. The concern bleeding through Phil’s voice tells Bucky that he’s telling the truth, and it sets off more alarms in Bucky’s head.

Bucky climbs into the black Civic he’d bought himself (despite Tony’s objections that it’s too-small-too-slow-too-average) and turns on the ignition, but he doesn’t go anywhere. Where would Clint go? He’s probably feeling like garbage, if his attitude and suppressed coughs and sallow skin are anything to go on, and now he’s hiding, dammit. Bucky should have put his foot down about Clint staying out of the fight, but the sharp glare Clint had fixed him with when he brought up the fact that Clint was coming down with something was enough to shut even the Winter Soldier up.

His phone buzzes with a text from Natasha. It’s an address in Bed-Stuy. Huh.

He picks the lock to the run-down apartment and steps into what could only be Clint’s place. There’s an old pizza box on the dirty kitchen counter, plates in the sink, and something sticky on the floor in front of the refrigerator. As he stands in the tiny kitchen, he can see a target on the far wall, riddled with holes, and dirty socks on the floor behind the ratty old couch. Clint’s one of the messiest people Bucky’s ever known, and totally foreign to Bucky’s experiences in his mother’s house, in the Army, and as a tool for HYDRA. He tries not to let it bug him when he’s at Clint’s place at the tower, but he cringes at the sight of this place. Those plates must have been in the sink for two weeks at least.

The rest of the place is just as messy, and just as Clint. The movies on the shelf next to the TV are the same titles that Clint had insisted JARVIS pull up for him to show Bucky, and his refrigerator is a duplicate in terms of contents as the one at the tower. Gatorade, condiments, and various types of pork and cheese products, but the ones here are spoiling. Clint hasn’t been here for a while.

He’s still not here.

Bucky swallows the disappointment that Clint was hiding this part of his life from Bucky and texts Natasha to let her know Clint’s not here, and then he leaves the building. He’s going to find him. This thing they’re doing, him and Clint, it’s the best thing Bucky’s done since Steve and Sam dragged Bucky back to the tower after finding him holed up in Belarus and running from HYDRA. Clint makes Bucky laugh, he doesn’t let Bucky slip into the vacant holes his brain wants to take him to, and makes Bucky think about the world in a whole new messy, funny way.

Bucky pulls the collar of his green canvas jacket close and walks the neighborhood, ducks in and out of restaurants and coffee shops and bars looking for Clint. When he doesn’t find him anywhere, he ends up standing in front of the subway station and staring down the dark stairwell. If Clint left the mission site without going back to the tower, he would have needed a lift. If he were sick, he might’ve . . . shit.

Bucky pounds down the steps and pulls his metro card out of his wallet with practiced ease. He bounces on his toes impatiently until the train pulls into the stop, and he makes sure to get on the last car.

It takes him an hour and a half and three different trains, but he finds him.

“Fuck, Clint,” he whispers as he drops to his knees. Clint’s curled in on himself and he’s trembling, and Bucky counts himself lucky to have noticed him. His head’s down and his chin’s on his chest, and he’s tucked into a corner seat like a balled up newspaper. Bucky presses his hand to Clint’s cheek and draws it back in surprise. Clint’s spiked a fever and when Bucky presses his fingers to Clint’s neck he feels a racing pulse. “Clint,” he says louder, and this time Clint startles and jerks himself back in a full-body flinch. His eyes settle on Bucky and he blinks, like he’s not sure Bucky’s really there.

“Hey, hey,” Bucky says, trying to sound soothing even though the train is rattling around them and people are staring too much for Bucky’s liking. He throws a glare at the closest person and they cut their eyes away. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay,” he says, and he presses his metal hand to Clint’s knee, like he’s going to hold Clint there. Clint’s coughing now, sharp dry coughs that make his whole body jerk. Bucky slides into the seat next to him and tries to pull him up so he’s sitting straight, and he swallows his own worry to make a plan.

“What the hell are you doin’ on a train,” he mutters, but Clint’s not in a spot to answer. He just sort of lists against Bucky and takes shuddering breaths to try and stop the cough. “Okay,” Bucky says. “Okay.” He’s not sure if he’s talking to Clint, or to himself. Clint is sick. Clint is feverish and hardly aware of anything except Bucky, and that’s so far from the Clint he knows that Bucky can’t help the thread of panic in his own chest.

Clint’s cough finally tapers off as the train pulls to a stop, and Bucky looks around, tries to figure out where they are and how to get to where they need to be. He pulls up the map of the subway system in his head as he reads the sign, and closes his eyes for a second to plot their course. He needs to get Clint back to the tower. He doesn’t need to be in Bed-Stuy right now.

They can deal with the fact that he’s got his own place that no one knows about later.

“Need t’go home, Buck,” Clint says, whining like a tired kid.

“Gonna get you back to the tower,” Bucky answers. The train pulls into the next stop and Bucky hauls Clint to his feet. “Come on.” Clint wavers like he’s drunk, so Bucky throws his shoulder under Clint’s arm and practically drags him off the train.

“Not the tower,” Clint protests, but it turns into another coughing jag and Bucky almost falls over when Clint’s feet go out from under him. Bucky stabilizes them and Clint repeats, “Not the tower. Home,” and his voice is tight, like his throat is strangled.

Bucky ignores the weird swirling in his stomach at the difference Clint’s making between the tower and his newly discovered apartment that had clearly been a secret he wasn’t willing to share. “No, Clint,” Bucky says as he drags them to the next platform over and onto another train. “Tony’s got a doctor. You need a doctor.”

Clint slumps down as Bucky pours him onto the plastic seat, and he shakes his head again. “No. It’s a fucking –“ he can’t finish because he coughs again, and this time he can’t stop. Bucky’s afraid he’s going to pass out from it, or that he’s actually going to cough up an organ or something.

“Fuck,” Bucky mutters as he pulls his phone from his pocket and tries to keep Clint upright in his seat.

Clint’s red and panting when he finally stops coughing, and he fucking burrows against Bucky’s neck and shoulder. “’m sick, Buck,” he says, like it’s news.

“Yeah,” Bucky answers, rubbing Clint’s neck and back as he holds him. “Yeah, you are. You’ll be okay, though. I’ve got you.” He presses a couple buttons on his phone and after a moment, Natasha picks up. “I’ve got him,” he says, “But he needs a doctor. I’m bringin’ him to the tower. Can Tony get someone up there and meet us?”

Somehow, Clint manages to pull himself away from Bucky’s side when he hears that. Bucky ends the phone call and Clint is shifting in his seat and glaring. “No. I’m goin’ home. Not the tower.” His face is red from coughing and his voice sounds like he’s talking around razorblades, but he’s clearly determined.

“Clint,” Bucky answers. “You were passed out on the subway. You need your place at the tower right now. It’s clean, it’s got us nearby to help, and Tony’s got a doctor. You don’t even have to go to medical.”

Clint sits back in his seat with his arms crossed tightly over his chest like a pouting kid and doesn’t answer.

When the train pulls to the stop near the tower, Bucky stands, but Clint stays in his seat. “Oh _come on_ , Clint,” Bucky says, and he pulls Clint to his feet. Clint tries to pull away, practically growls at Bucky, but clearly doesn’t have the strength to pull it off. Bucky drags him off the train and up the stairs to the street, and that’s clearly all the fight Clint has left.

“Fuck you, Barnes,” he mutters, and he won’t let Bucky pull his arm across his shoulder to help him, but Bucky holds him by his elbow and when the cracks in the pavement give Clint’s shuffling feet trouble, he keeps Clint from going down to the ground. It gets them to the tower and to the elevator, and then Clint loses the fight entirely and leans against Bucky’s side again, his head on Bucky’s shoulder.

“You’re gonna be okay,” Bucky says.

“Fuck you,” Clint says again, but he leans more heavily, and by the time the elevator reaches their floor, Bucky’s holding him up entirely. He takes the opportunity to feel Clint’s forehead, and he really doesn’t like how clammy and warm he is. He throws his shoulder under Clint’s arm without any protest this time, and pulls Clint, stumbling, off of the elevator and into his apartment.

Natasha’s waiting on Clint’s couch, and she shakes her head like she’s disappointed when she catches sight of them. “You’re a mess, Barton,” she says, but Bucky can hear the fondness and worry in her voice. He drags Clint to the couch and pushes him down next to her. Clint immediately lists to the side and ends up with his head on her lap and her fingers brushing through his damp hair.

Bucky wants to be the one with his hands in Clint’s hair, but he knows Natasha needs to reassure herself that Clint’s okay, and Clint always seems to respond best to Natasha anyway. Bucky figures anyone who falls for Clint will have to reconcile with that so he did it quickly. He can share certain things. He kneels down in front of them and looks up at Natasha. “Doctor?”

She sighs and blows out a breath. “It’s going to be a bit. The one Clint likes is with someone else at the moment. She said to get Clint’s fever down and try and get him to eat something light.

“Need t’go h’me,” Clint mumbles into her lap, and Bucky closes his eyes for a moment.

He looks up at Natasha. “He won’t shut up about that place and I didn’t even know it exists.” After a pause, he runs his own hand through Clint’s hair and presses it against his cheek. “I’ll take you soon as the doc says it’s okay. Promise.”

Clint nods and then lapses into another coughing fit. He has to sit up and by the end of it he’s shaking, and Natasha’s given him a tissue that he’s filled with the grossest goo Bucky’s seen since the slug-aliens they fought two months ago.

Bucky’s not panicking. He knows about helping someone who’s sick, so he’s not panicking. What he is doing is getting increasingly pissed off at the universe for messing with Clint like this. Clint, whose fears show up as nightmares or bouts of depression that Bucky has just begun to wade through with him, has been sharing Bucky’s bed a couple times a week for about three months now. Clint refuses to name what they are to each other, but Bucky calls them boyfriends and, in the privacy of their tower apartments, sweethearts.

It made Clint blush all the way down to his bare feet the first time Bucky said it, and Clint just shook his head, shrugged, and said, “Whatever, Barnes,” but he didn’t deny it. Now Bucky wants to fight whatever force in the universe decided to throw this Clint’s way. All Clint can think of is going back to his hidden apartment, and Bucky just wants him here. Suddenly he realizes something, though.

He blinks, sighs, and says, “Oh,” before leaning in and pressing his forehead to Clint. Clint makes grabby hands at Bucky’s shirt and Bucky slides onto the couch next to him. “Let’s get your fever down, let the doc look at you, and I promise we won’t make any deal about this to the team, ok? Me and Natasha’ll tamp down any big deal, ok?”

“Home,” Clint mumbles again, and fuck if he doesn’t have a one-track mind about this.

Bucky doesn’t suppose he blames him. “Yeah, and then we’ll get you out of sight of this place and away from everyone else.” Clint wants to hole up out of sight and recover, and Bucky gets that. He has to close his eyes against a memory of desperately trying to make sure everyone’s attention was on Steve when they got back to camp after Steve pulled them out of that HYDRA cage. Bucky was about to fall over and had weird shit burning through his veins, but he didn’t want to steal Steve’s moment. He knows about holing up where no one knows how bad off you are. Bucky presses a kiss to his forehead again. “I’ll get you some soup and some aspirin.”

When Clint won’t swallow the soup and throws up the aspirin, Bucky might start to panic a little, but Natasha suggests a cool bath and the bed, so Bucky at least has something to do. “I’d hoped we could try this bathtub together,” he mumbles as he eases Clint down into the tepid water. Clint’s skin is hot and clammy, and when Bucky lowers him into the water he has to hold him up so he doesn’t slip under. Once Clint gets his head leaned back and closes his eyes, though, Bucky can let go and gently pour cool water over Clint’s chest to get rid of the sweat.

Clint’s body is one of the most gorgeous things Bucky’s ever seen in his life, but here, pale and rebelling against him, Bucky wants to wrap it up so he doesn’t have to see it, so he can keep Clint warm and safe until the sickness passes through. He watches the water lap against Clint’s clammy skin, and watches Clint’s long eyelashes resting on his cheek.

He wonders if he can will the sickness away.

He replaces the warming water with cool water periodically until Clint pries his eyes open and reaches up to stop Bucky’s hand at the faucet. He laces his fingers into Bucky’s and Bucky sucks in a sharp breath. “You feeling better?” He whispers, brushing Clint’s damp hair away from his face.

Clint nods. “Tired,” he says, and closes his eyes again. He hasn’t coughed in about ten minutes, though, and his skin feels cooler all over.

“Let’s get you dried off and try the bed,” Bucky says. “Doc should be here soon.”

Once Clint’s in loose-fitting, navy blue sweatpants and one of his ratty old t-shirts, Bucky presses him into his bed and Natasha brings in a glass of ice water with a neon pink and green curly straw. Bucky stops for a second to consider the fact that Clint keeps such straws in his kitchen cupboards, and then holds it out for him to sip. He does, but then descends into another coughing fit and Bucky has to pull the glass away and put it back on the dresser.

Natasha frowns. “You fought today, why?” she asks, and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Clint can’t answer, so I’ll tell you why,” Bucky says. “He’s a stubborn idiot. That’s why.”

Clint glares at both of them and burrows under the covers. “’was fine this morning,” he mumbles.

Before the argument can get very far, the doctor Tony had called knocks at the door.

She only stays a few minutes, long enough to listen to Clint’s chest from every angle and to check his temperature, which is high, but not dangerous. She asks a few questions, and then leaves, advising rest, fever reducers once Clint’s stomach allows it, and even more rest for the verdict of acute bronchitis. Bucky, thinking back to when medicine was something he constantly saved money for, asks about a prescription for something. The doctor shrugs and kindly explains that she doesn’t want to prescribe anything yet, that it should run its course in a week or so.

Bucky grits his teeth and nods.

Natasha is rubbing a cool, damp washcloth across Clint’s forehead and telling a dirty joke when Bucky gets back from escorting the doctor out, and it makes Clint laugh and then cough some more.

Bucky throws his hands up. “Leave him alone if you’re gonna do that,” he grouses.

“Laughter is the best medicine,” she replies, and then stands. “I’m going leave you two alone to fight out where he sleeps. Call or text if you need something, and don’t let him bully you,” she says to Bucky.

Clint mumbles something from the blankets. Bucky can’t hear it, but he’ll guess that it’s got something to do with _home._ He ignores it and leans over Clint’s bed. “I’m going to get cleaned up. I’ll be back in a minute. Rest.”

“Bucky,” Clint whines, but Bucky waves him off.

“Gimme a minute.” He takes a one-minute shower to wash off the grime from the battle earlier and to rinse out his hair, and then borrows a pair of sleep pants and a t-shirt from Clint. He climbs into the bed and presses a kiss to Clint’s cheek. “You awake?” he asks, and brushes his hand down Clint’s too-warm cheek.

Clint just nods and burrows into Bucky’s side, throwing his arm across Bucky’s chest.

“Okay. Let’s sleep for a while and see if you can handle some aspirin and soup later. Just rest.”

Clint answers by coughing again, and Bucky has to get another tissue. Tears are leaking from the corners of Clint’s eyes, and he breathes shallow when he’s finished.

Bucky wipes his face with the damp cloth and strokes a rhythmic pattern down his cheek, relentless with it until Clint’s body finally loses its tension, and his breathing evens out into a shallow sleep.  Bucky dozes next to him, and images from the fight swirl in and out of images of the subway and Clint’s apartment to wake him.

He wonders about when Clint got the place, how he found it. Did Nat help him? Did Phil? Knowing Clint, though, he was probably wandering the city aimlessly and met some friendly person from the building, decided they were good people, and saw a vacancy. He imagines Clint moving in, probably carrying heavy furniture while wearing one of his fuck-me t-shirts with the sleeves cut off. It’s not a bad image, and it makes Bucky smile, roll over, and sleep.

When Clint wakes up with a sharp cough a while later, Bucky sits up fast, blinks hard, and turns to press his hand to Clint’s back.

Clint coughs and slumps against Bucky when he’s finished. His tousled hair is sticking up like tiny twigs and his skin is still warm to the touch. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are still glassy. “Bucky?” he mumbles. “Where are we?”

Bucky rubs his hand up and down Clint’s back and reaches for the glass of water on the nightstand. Clint’s still shaking from his coughing fit, so Bucky holds it for him. As he cups the back of Clint’s head and presses the cup to his lips, he has a flashback to a small apartment in Brooklyn with Steve under his hands. Bucky closes his eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath. This is Clint. Clint, who’s leaning into Bucky and starting to fall asleep again.

“We’re at the tower. Doc said to try and get your temperature down, okay? Lemme check it.” He replaces the cup with the thermometer and presses it to Clint’s forehead. It beeps a moment later and reads 101.8. “Better, but not good,” he reports.

Clint groans. “I feel like absolute fucking garbage.”

“Yeah,” Bucky answers, “I hate to break it to you, but you look like garbage, too, gorgeous.”

Clint snorts and groans again. “C’n I just go home?”

Bucky sighs. “Here we go again. Clint. I need you here where I can get to you. Where it’s easier to get the doctor to you. Just for a bit.”

“There’s parking in front of my place and you can come stay. Please, Bucky.”

Bucky wants to snap at him, but he controls his voice. “I’m trying to take care of you.”

Clint’s the one who snaps, although there’s not much heat behind it since he’s still kind of out of breath from the bronchitis. “I can take care of myself.”

Bucky gets up from the bed and Clint slumps back against the pillows.

“Come on,” Clint says. “Just come with me. You can stay.”

Bucky crosses his arms across his chest. He wants to fight. He wants to ask why he’d stay when Clint didn’t ever bother to tell him he had his own place. Why he’d go somewhere Clint clearly didn’t want to share? He doesn’t, though. He looks at Clint, pale against the dark blue sheets of his bed, cheeks still flushed with fever, throat swallowing coughs he doesn’t want to let out. Maybe this is the only way Bucky will be let into that part of Clint’s life. Maybe this is the only way Clint can ask for help.

“Fine. But you don’t get to get mad at me for cleaning up the pit that you call a kitchen.”

Clint nods and closes his eyes with a tired grin. “Yeah. That’s fair.”

<><><><><><> 

Clint’s not hiding.

Well, he’s burrowed under the covers, so maybe he could be accused of hiding, but really he just wants the most of Bucky’s body heat, and that means burrowing against him. He thinks maybe his fever’s finally broken, which is good because the past two days have been a hazy blur. He can remember flashes from the subway – Bucky’s worried gaze, Bucky’s sharp no when Clint asked to come back here, Bucky’s hand on his elbow as he stumbled onto the platform – and he remembers the bath and the doctor at the tower. He remembers glaring at Bucky every time he asked to come here and Bucky said no. Other than that, though, everything’s a blur.

He was back here in his apartment before he was really aware of much, and now Bucky’s in his bed with him, which is about the best thing that could possibly have come of all of this. He can’t help stroking his hand against Bucky’s side and breathing him in. Of course, that sets off another fucking coughing fit.

He pulls the covers off so that if he loses a lung, he can at least cough it over the side of the damned bed. He feels Bucky’s metal hand against his back and his other hand steadies Clint’s arm.

“Jesus, Barton,” Bucky grumbles, his voice rough from sleep. “You about done with this shit?”

Clint sucks in a sharp breath when he thinks the coughing is done. “You about done puttin’ up with me?” 

He feels Bucky shift and move, and then they’re sitting next to each other at the edge of the bed, but Bucky hasn’t moved his hand, and now he’s running it up and down Clint’s back, slow and firm, and Clint can’t help but melt into Bucky’s side. He lays his head on Bucky’s shoulder and closes his eyes again.

“You don’t feel as warm as you were. Think your fever finally broke?” Bucky asks, and Clint nods against him.

“Feel better. Don’t know if it broke.” He doesn’t want to move to find out. He wants to stay sitting here for the rest of time, really, ‘cause it feels like nothing could go wrong here, like Bucky might stay with him forever if he doesn’t move. Bucky lets him stay, and Clint starts to doze off on accident. He feels Bucky shift, and he keeps them upright against the head board, and keeps Clint against him, stroking down his arm now, even and slow.

Clint sleeps again.

When he wakes, he’s still leaning on Bucky, who’s got his phone out in his free hand and is reading something about growing tomatoes on patios in New York. Clint blinks and takes a tentative breath. He doesn’t cough. He wants to celebrate that, but he’s still got exhaustion creeping through his bones and all he can manage is a deep yawn.

“Hey sunshine,” Bucky says, and his voice is lighter now, has his smile in it again, Clint can tell.

“Hey,” he replies, and he straightens up, pulls away from Bucky to look around the room. “What the hell time is it?” he asks. Disoriented doesn’t even begin to cover how he’s feeling.

Bucky laughs. “What day is it, more like. It’s Sunday morning and you’ve been sleeping for . . . a really long time.” There’s a smile on his face and warmth in his voice, and Clint feels like maybe having a boyfriend to wake up to when you’re sick is a serious advantage in life.

Bucky reaches across Clint to get to the nightstand and then presses a thermometer to his forehead. When it beeps, he sighs. “About damn time,” he mutters. “No fever. That part of this nightmare is done at least.”

“Nightmare, huh?” Clint asks, but then the spell of no coughing is broken and he coughs a deep, rattling cough and has to grab a tissue from Bucky’s hand to avoid grossing both of them out. It takes a good minute to get his damned breathing under control, and he’s practically panting as he collapses back against the pillow. “Fuck.”

“Like I said,” Bucky says, “Nightmare.” He climbs out of the bed and presses his hand to Clint’s ankle when Clint complains. “I’m gonna fix you some tea. You need to drink. You think maybe you could handle some toast, too?”

Clint blinks at the thought of someone fixing him tea, and then nods. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.” He watches Bucky leave the room and he stares at his ceiling for a second before he remembers something. “Buck!” He calls, “I don’t have bread or tea!”

He can’t bring himself to be surprised when Bucky shouts back, “Nat and Phil went grocery shopping for you!”

Sounds about right, Bucky watching over him and Nat and Phil bringing in supplies. And Clint was just going to hole up by himself until this mess passed through. Sometimes he makes dumb decisions. He rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes to wait for Bucky, but it’s just a blink before Bucky’s pressing his hand to Clint’s shoulder.

“Hey, can you wake up enough to eat this? You haven’t had anything in more than a day.”

Clint makes it through one piece of toast and most of the tea, but he’s asleep again in less than fifteen minutes. He wakes long enough to go to the bathroom when it’s dark outside and Bucky’s sleeping next to him again, and sleeps some more after that. When he wakes again, Bucky’s not there.

The smell of rich coffee permeates the room, though, and Clint’s climbing out of bed heading toward the kitchen before he can even really think about it. When he gets to the end of the hallway, he stops and stares. His kitchen is spotless. There are no dishes in the sink, the floor looks like it’s shimmering, the countertops are free of coffee stains, and the visible shelves are stocked with crackers, bread, peanut butter, and other easy-to-tolerate foods. He heads in and opens his refrigerator. There are bottles of juice, milk, and cold water on the main shelf, and the rest are full of containers and things like butter and yogurt and fresh cheese.

“Clint,” Bucky starts, but Clint just holds up a hand to stop him as he closes the refrigerator and heads into the living room. The whole place is clean. Blankets are folded on the couch, the floor looks like it’s been mopped, the shelves are dust-free and the windows even look like they’ve been washed.

“Clint,” Bucky says again, “You’ve been sleeping for two days. I was bored.”

Clint looks over at him, and sees worry etched into his face. He gives him a tired grin and goes over to lean against him. “It looks nice,” he mumbles into Bucky’s shoulder, and can feel his sigh. “It probably won’t last, though.” Clint’s never been one to keep things clean. He usually comes here when he’s in one of his funks, so he spends most of the time curled up on his couch eating takeout or shooting until he can’t stand up anymore.

Bucky pulls Clint to the kitchen table and presses him into a chair. He sets a cup of coffee in front of him and pulls a plate from the oven that Clint didn’t even know worked. It’s piled with scrambled eggs and bacon, and Bucky adds some cut up melon on the side as Clint stares at the plate. Clint blinks and looks up at Bucky. “You’re taking care of me,” he says, and he’s not sure what Bucky will say, but he needs to say this. “Thanks. I wasn’t going to …” he breaks off because he’s not sure what to say. Telling Bucky he was planning on holing up in the apartment until his body got its shit together again didn’t seem right.

“You were going to hole up in your apartment until your body got its shit together, weren’t you?” Bucky says.

Clint looks over at him and grins, and he can’t believe this guy sitting in Clint’s apartment like it’s the most reasonable thing to be doing with his time. “What are you, a mind reader?” he asks, and he digs into the breakfast in front of him. The apartment is warm, and the smell of fresh cleaning supplies is everywhere, but it’s being covered by the bacon and eggs and coffee, and Clint is feeling better than he has in a week, and Bucky’s sitting across from him drinking coffee and grinning that grin that had stopped Clint in his tracks the first time he saw it.

“You know, when I first met you I figured you’d spend all your time holed up in Steve’s apartment or the gym, blowing off steam.” He smiled at the memory of Bucky, all dark hair and dark clothes to match. “Then you started hanging out and learning to play video games.”

“Because video games. It was like the universe gave me a yay-you-survived gift.”

Clint laughed. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Your precious Xbox.”

“I figure, though,” Bucky replied, and he looked down at his coffee with a sheepish grin, “The universe gave me two gifts.” He looked up again, and fixed Clint with his tiny-bit-possessive stare that he gets sometimes.

And Clint loves Bucky’s eyes, his face, the way he can pierce people with just a look and the way people misjudge those eyes for someone cold when Bucky is the  warmest person Clint’s ever met, but this kind of statement is too much. Clint takes a few more bites of eggs and sighs. “I’m nobody’s gift, Buck,” he says, and he’s suddenly exhausted. He sets his fork down and pushes himself back from the table. “I gotta sleep again.”

Bucky’s there at his side before he can get two steps toward his bedroom, and his arms are around him and steering him to the couch instead, where Bucky pulls him down so he’s pressed against Bucky’s side, arm around him and pulling him close. “You are a gift, you idiot,” he tells Clint, and Clint doesn’t know what to do with the emotion in Bucky’s voice.

“I like your apartment,” Bucky asks, suddenly and like he’s changing the subject so Clint doesn’t have to answer. He’s nice like that.

“Mmm. It’s a wreck,” Clint answers, because it is.

“It’s a comfortable wreck,” Bucky replies, and squeezes Clint’s shoulder. “Kind of like you.”

And there it is again, that heartfelt honesty that makes Clint’s brain stutter. He wants to thank Bucky for the compliments, wants to give some compliments back, but those sorts of declarations always die in the back of his throat, killed by too many people who left, died, disappeared on him when he got close enough for those kinds of words. “I didn’t know you knew about the place,” he says instead of acknowledging the moment.

“Yeah, I didn’t,” Bucky answers, and Clint looks up at the tone in his voice. “Natasha sent me the address when we couldn’t find you.”

Clint knows that tone, the bit of it Bucky can’t manage to hide. It’s self-reprimanding, the kind that says ‘you’re not important enough, you’re not good enough.’  Clint is intimately familiar with that tone, and it shouldn’t _ever_ be in Bucky’s voice. “You’re important to me,” escapes from Clint’s mouth before he can even think. “It was never that.”

Bucky just shrugs, so yeah, Clint’s hit this nail on the head.

He coughs again, enough that Bucky hands him a glass of water and then a cherry lozenge. Clint looks up at him in surprise as he unwraps it. “I hate lozenges,” he says as he pops it in his mouth. Ugh. “They’re disgusting.”

Bucky grins and raises an eyebrow at him.

“Well,” Clint sighs, and leans back into the couch, “Whatever works.”

“Doc says you can have them now that your fever’s broken and you’re on the uphill side of this crap.”

Clint leans a little so he’s leaning into Bucky’s side again. “This place is my own damn psych issue, and I’m sorry I never told you about it.”

Bucky cocks his head. “What do you mean?”

“I need a place to hide when I can’t keep up with you guys,” he says quickly, because he really never intended to say that out loud to anyone, much less the guy he’d like to keep sleeping with and waking up next to.

Bucky’s silent for a minute, takes a drink of his tea or whatever the hell the brown swirly stuff is in his glass. “You always keep up with us,” he says.

Clint can’t help rolling his eyes. “Like I’m keeping up with you now?” he says, and then devolves into another coughing fit in spite of the lozenge, and he doesn’t even manage to keep the damn thing in his mouth.

Bucky gets up, picks it up with a napkin and puts it in the trash, and comes back with more water for Clint.

He sips it, and a wave of exhaustion rolls over him. “I’m just gonna sleep,” Clint mumbles as Bucky sits back down. “Forget about what I said.”

“Hey,” Bucky says, and he runs his hand through Clint’s hair in that way that makes Clint want to just melt into his touch. “Settle, okay? We can talk about it later if you want, but nobody thinks you’re weak. Steve told me not long ago that he thinks you’re tougher than any of our old gang. Tony keeps a running tally of your crazy stunts during missions and makes sure there’s a camera on whenever you and Nat are sparring. He says he eats popcorn and makes highlight reels – offered to show me, too. Thor once told me that he’d like to see you and Fandral go at it sometime.”

Warmth rushes through Clint and he swallows thickly.

“All you ever did when you first met me,” Bucky says, softer than before, “Was to offer to play video games and offer to spar because, and I quote, ‘everyone else was pulling their goddamned punches’ with me.”

“’No sense of self-preservation’ might actually be in my psych profile,” Clint says with a shrug. “Like I said, I’m a bit of a wreck.” He closes his eyes. Bucky runs his hand down Clint’s face, so he opens them again.

“You’re my wreck,” Bucky says with a smile. “You’re the team’s wreck. Look,” he says, and shifts a little on the couch, “If you need a place of your own that’s a place to get away from being an Avenger, no one is gonna say no. None of us even needs to come here. I get it. But Clint,” he says, and his voice breaks a little. “You don’t have to hide. Please. . . .  Just tell me to back off and I will. Tell me you’re coming out here and I won’t follow you. Just . . . don’t disappear where I can’t help.” He leans over and brushes his lips to Clint’s, a gentle push, no more.

Clint pushes back, pulls Bucky down, and tangles his hands in Bucky’s hair. He savors the warm feel of Bucky’s lips, a little bit chapped, a little too dry, but warm and pliant. He doesn’t deepen it, because yeah, Bucky doesn’t need to catch this garbage, but he holds Bucky close and lets the smell of aftershave and coffee and Clint’s apartment calm his racing heart.

“I won’t disappear,” Clint says as they part. “You can follow me anywhere I go.”

Bucky grins down at him and nods. “Okay, sweetheart. I’ll hold you to it.”

Clint can feel himself blush again, the way he always does when Bucky throws words like that around, but he just closes his eyes again with a smile. “Anything you say, dear,” he replies, and Bucky laughs. Clint dozes off to the feel of Bucky chuckling, and he figures yeah, having Bucky around in all of Clint’s spaces is nothing but awesome, and he’d been an idiot to think otherwise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
